The Free Voice of Labor: The Jewish Anarchists

Anarchism informed the politics of the largest radical movement among the Jewish immigrant community in the United States in the 1880s and 1890s, and it continued to attract fervent support into the first decades of the twentieth century. This film dramatically portrays immigrant life in the United States through the experiences of the sweatshop workers who comprised the Jewish anarchist movement; a movement that was dedicated to freedom; freedom from economic exploitation and from the Church and the State.

In 1977, as the Jewish anarchist newspaper Freie Arbeiter Stimme was about to close down after 87 years of publication, the filmmakers interviewed elderly anarchists about their experiences in the movement. They talked about the conditions that led them to join, their fight to build trade unions, differences with the Communists, attitudes toward violence and loyalty to one another. Through these interviews with actual participants, the film documents their contributions to the fledging US labour movement and developing Yiddish culture. It also features stills, newsreel footage, selections from old motion pictures, and Yiddish songs of work and struggle. In the words of Richard F. Shepard of The New York Times, the film is ‘a wonderful evocation of the radical political past and what has become of its activists in their old age.... They have aged gracefully, with their sentiments unchanged, but with their world different in ways they would never have dreamed of years ago....’.
 
Notes & Credits:
Colour/Black & White
Pacific Street Film Collective
Cinematography by Judy Irola
Editing by Kristina Boden
Music by Zalmen Mlotek
Research by Erika Gottfried
Sound by Steven Fischler
Consultants: Paul Avrich and Ahrne Thorne